Tuesday, December 04, 2007

On The Road

Cory Siegler and me at new Jersey's Feast of St. John(I'm the bigger guy on the right, the one with no sleep)

The Feast of St. John dinner on Saturday was a phenomenal evening, and I owe many thanks to everyone who helped make it so memorable. It was great to meet brothers Jay Hochberg, Steve Schilling and Cory Sigler in person, and as is getting to be a regular occurrence, putting a face to brethren I have only known via the Internet.

Saturday's event was held at the Grand Lodge of New Jersey's Fellowship Hall next to their Masonic Home campus. New Jersey has an outstanding, modern and up to date facility, and they have much to be proud of.

RW:. Alan Hayden has a unique talent for woodworking, and is renowned in New Jersey for his custom gavels. I am honored that he created one for Grand Master Ryan to present to me. It was only later that I was told the significance of the numbers stamped into the base of the handle. At first, I believed it was the number of gavels Brother Hayden had made, 245. But it turns out to be the date, February 1945, that a friend of Brother Hayden's was shot. The men were standing side by side, and Alan believes his friend took a bullet that was meant for him. Alan spent the rest of the war in a german POW camp. He has made many of these gavels, all stamped with the same date, as a memorial to his friend.

Getting to stay in the Grand Master's suite at the home was a welcome, homey respite from the typical motel room, and Alice, Wiley and I were all very comfortable. Many, many thanks to MW:. John Ryan, Grand Master, Brian Johnson, Grand Lodge Administrator, their charming ladies, and all of the New Jersey Masons who made this a terrific night.

We're still on the road, and I'd like to take this opportunity to remind myself how much I hate driving in the northeast in winter. The 5 hour drive from Burlington, NJ to Boston on Sunday night came to 10 hours, thanks to the snow and ice storm that plagued us the whole way. Like our upside down schedule at home, we're sleeping in the daytime and driving at night, so tomorrow I will hopefully get switched around so we can get our daytime trip to Salem while it is still light.

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Freemasonry is the world's largest, oldest and best-known gentleman's fraternity. It is based on the medieval stonemason guilds who built the great castles and cathedrals of Europe. Modern Freemasons use the tools, traditions and terminology of those stonemasons as allegories for building temples in the hearts of men. It's said that we are a secret society. We do indeed have secrets—secrets that each individual man has to discover for and about himself. At its core, Freemasonry is simply an attempt to make the world a better place, one man at a time. For that man, it can become as simple or as complicated as he himself desires. It's not for everybody. Maybe it's for you.

"Brother Chris Hodapp's [blog]...is thought provoking and is often the first place on the web where new ideas and matters of interest are posted."

He spent twenty three years in advertising as a commercial filmmaker for Dean Crow Productions, shooting and editing close to 1,000 commercials, music videos and feature films. He has written scripts for corporate and non-profit clients, and his voice has appeared in many television and radio commercials.

Chris has attended Indiana University, the University of Southern California, Los Angeles Valley College, California State University at Northridge, and Indiana/Purdue University at Indianapolis.

As a Freemason, he is a Past Master of Broad Ripple Lodge #643 and of Lodge Vitruvian #767, Free & Accepted Masons of the State of Indiana. He is an honorary member of Vincennes Lodge No. 1, Plymouth-Kilwinning Lodge #149, Ancient Landmarks Lodge #319, Garfield Lodge #569, and Logan Lodge #575 in Indiana, African Lodge #459, Prince Hall Affiliation, in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Grand Lodge of New Mexico AF&AM.

He was the editor and a contributor to "Laudable Pursuit: A 21st Century Response to Dwight Smith"by the Knights of the North, a Masonic leadership think-tank. He has written for Indianapolis Monthly, Masonic Magazine, Templar History, the Scottish Rite Journal, the Knight Templar Magazine, the Indiana Freemason , the Phylaxis, and many other publications.

He has appeared on the History Channel, Discovery, National Geographic, and the American Heroes Channel. Hodapp and Von Kannon also developed episode outlines for the History Channel program, Brad Meltzer's Decoded in 2010, and Chris contributed material on conspiracies and secret societies for TruTV.

His most recent book, "Deciphering the Lost Symbol," was published in 2009.

He and Alice live in Indianapolis with their very French poodle, Wiley.

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